Regulations prove very contentious
The Congress is organised by IFOAM EU — the European part of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. IFOAM is an umbrella for organic farming certification bodes.
Organic farmers, lawyers who represent them, certification bodies, trade unions and IFOAM voiced concerns about many aspects of the proposed regulation.
I spoke to IFOAM EU president Christopher Stopes, who said: “While we haven’t adopted a full agreed position on the regulation as of yet, we do have some significant concerns.
“There are two in particular. The first is a proposal that there should be no allowance for mixed organic and conventional holdings. We think the separation protocols are adequate at the moment. The other one would be on pesticide thresholds, where de-certification and liability would be placed on the organic farmer. This would be completely inappropriate, as contamination can happen elsewhere in the supply chain. It holds the organic farmer, who doesn’t use pesticides, liable for contamination from the conventional farmer or elsewhere.”
This latter point on accidental or inadvertent contamination was the hot topic of the week. The problem is that the organic food system is, inevitably, longer, more complicated, and more interconnected than ever before. That said, it is still a relatively small part of the overall food system.
Organic farms are often surrounded by conventional ones, and organic food is often packed or processed in houses that also handle conventional produce. With conventional packing houses routinely cleaned with fungicides, for example, and organic foods packed in these houses too, the controls can only do so much, at the micro level.In these contexts, the potential for pesticide residues to inadvertently end up somewhere in the organic food chain is high.
So who is liable? How does the organic farmer get compensated, when organic food is taken out of the certification system, through no fault of the organic farmer? An example was given by a Danish organic farming representative, of two organic farmers who received €30,000 in compensation from a conventional farming union. These two farmers had food withdrawn from the organic system. A particular pesticide company controlled 90% of the production of this pesticide in Denmark, the speaker pointed out, but refused to accept liability. The organic farmers themselves could prove, via audited accounts, inspections and other means, that they did not use these pesticides. While it was likely that pesticide drift from a nearby farmer caused it, or it came from some other inadvertent source, no individual farmer could be blamed.
Things got heated when, under pressure from the organic farming lobby, the pesticide company threatened to pull that product out of the country altogether, rather than accept any liability.To prevent the withdrawal, the conventional farming union stepped in to compensate the organic farmers.
The new regulation will set the pesticide threshold for testing in organic so strictly that this sort of case may come up more often.
German attorney-at-law Hans Peter Schmidt was very vocal on the new regulation. His exchanges with Joao Onofre of the EU Commission’s Organic Farming Unit were especially heated.
Schmidt favours withdrawing the regulation altogether, and starting afresh.
He is concerned about residues and thresholds, and also that third country equivalency will allow inputs banned under EU organic rules to be sold as organic in the EU.
More third country agreements are being entered into by the EU, Schmidt pointed out, and some involve foods already on sale in the EU. In all cases, there are potential discrepancies.
One gets the feeling that either way, Schmidt and his cohorts will have many lucrative days in court.
